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February 19, 2009

Pillsbury Confirms Loudmouth's Layoff Gaffe

All aboard, and leave your wits (and any sense of decorum) at the door!

Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman confirmed Thursday it will conduct layoffs in the near future after the legal blog Above the Law reported an anonymous tipster’s detailed description of a loud cell phone conversation between senior managers regarding the reductions.

The call apparently took place between Bob Robbins, head of the Corporate and Securities practice, and COO Rick Donaldson. Robbins apparently named names of 15 to 20 attorneys who should be laid off in four offices by the end of March.
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Pillsbury issued this statement to The Recorder/Legal Pad on Thursday morning:

“It is an unfortunate fact in today’s economy that no business or law firm can rule out adjustments to their overall workforce levels. This includes Pillsbury, and among other cost cutting measures, we will be implementing reductions to assure that our resources are aligned with our business needs. We apologize for the unfortunate manner in which our deliberations about reductions have become public.”

Robbins unknowingly confirmed to ATL that he was on the 2 p.m. Amtrak express from D.C. to New York on Wednesday, the same train as the tipster.

“I was on the 2:00 train this afternoon. Do I know you? Did you find something I had left?” Robbins responded to an email sent from ATL under a pseudonym. We also called Robbins’ D.C. office this morning and were told he’s unavailable … he’s in New York today.

Pillsbury’s Web site was inaccessible for some of the morning, but it was unclear whether that was related to the blog item, which linked to profiles of Robbins and Donaldson.